Have We Overlooked a Third Kind of Nutritional Starvation?

Throughout human history, caloric starvation has plagued civilizations and claimed more lives than perhaps any other category of disease. Later, we came to understand another critical form: protein malnutrition, known as kwashiorkor — a structural starvation in which calories may be present but essential amino acids are lacking, leading to impaired growth, repair, and immune function.

But what if there is a third, largely overlooked form of starvation?
One not defined by energy or structure — but by information.

Food is more than fuel and building material. It is a complex, dynamic medium for environmental signalling. The molecules in food carry biological information — cues that drive gene expression, epigenetic regulation, hormonal balance, and microbiome composition. This information enables organisms to adapt to their surroundings. It tells our bodies what season it is, what stressors are present, and which pathways should be upregulated or downregulated to maintain homeostasis.

In traditional diets, this food-based information was abundant and diverse — coming from wild plants, soil microbes, fermented products, seasonal cycles, and unprocessed nutrient-dense foods. But in the modern world, even as we meet our energy and protein needs through ultra-processed foods, we may be starving for this third essential input.

The modern diet is not just nutritionally imbalanced — it is informationally silent.

Stripped of complexity, diversity, and natural signalling molecules, ultra-processed foods fail to deliver the biochemical cues our cells and microbiomes need to function properly. This loss of food-based information may help explain the mysterious rise of non-communicable diseases in societies with no apparent nutrient deficiencies — the so-called diseases of civilisation.

It may be time to reframe our understanding of nutrition — not just as a question of what we eat, but of what information our food carries, and what happens when that information is lost.